The sign value of accounting: IMF structural adjustment programs and African banking reform

This paper examines an IMF structural adjustment program and the role of accounting technologies and agents within that program. Focusing on banking sector reform in Nigeria, the paper shows how IMF attempts to remake economic life come up against formidable contextual challenges, and how accounting may or may not be taken up to confront those challenges. Specifically, it shows that even where accounting numbers are ‘managed’, the potential disciplinary power of accounting's system of signs remains, though again that power may not be exploited if those who are responsible for governing lack the necessary desire. The study's findings challenge two sets of understandings: that which sees the economy as somehow separate or distinct from the wider socio-political field, and that which sees crises such as occurred in Nigeria as simply resulting from inadequate or insufficient accounting regulations and controls.     

Economic well-being and morbidity of the elderly in Malaysia

Studies about the elderly are mostly focused on morbidity and psychological conditions of the elderly. Effects of social relations have been noted to be important for the well-being of an elderly person. Later studies have begun to look at socioeconomic status of the elderly to see its relation to the level of morbidity. This paper is based on a nationwide survey. A total of 10 percent of elderly total population was interviewed to obtain socioeconomic and lifestyle information. A self reporting method was used as it was easiest to obtain the answers from the elderly. A total of 1410 elderly respondents aged 60 and above were interviewed from the regions of northern, eastern, middle and southern Peninsular Malaysia and also from Sabah and Sarawak. The data was analyzed using the SPSS 16. Quantitative analysis based on mean, standard deviation and multiple regressions was done. Findings show that higher morbidity rate lowers ones economic well-being. Females report higher morbidity then males, while those who are married and residing in rural area also reoort lower morbidity.     

A critical appraisal of the social entrepreneurship paradigm in an international setting: a proposed conceptual framework

The concept of entrepreneurship embedded in the backdrop of business has been increasingly applied to the context of addressing social problems and sustainability challenges. Known as ‘social entrepreneurship’ the topic has garnered the heightened attention of researchers in recent years. As a nascent stream of research social entrepreneurship is still in the early stages of development. Recent evidence suggests a growing body of scholarly research in this field; however, its conceptualisation remains obscure as it is predominantly dictated by definitional arguments. Consequently, the literature is still anecdotal in trying to unveil different dimensions of social entrepreneurship and its potential benefits that might help to battle sustainability challenges. To bridge the existing gap in social entrepreneurship research this study adopts an inductive content analysis approach. Accordingly, a sizeable number of prior studies were extracted from five major databases from 1991 to date. Findings from the prior studies were synthesised in a systematic manner to draw valid conclusions. Based on the findings drawn from prior literature the study also proposes a conceptual framework and prompts further empirical research. The implications of the study are two-fold: academic and practical. The academic implication is primarily to contribute to the relatively uncultivated area of social entrepreneurship literature. The practical implications of the study are potentially instrumental for social entrepreneurs and policy-makers who are involved in social wealth creation. Moreover, the practical implication of the study is deemed to be very significant given the rising impetus of sustainability issues, where it is believed that entrepreneurs can play a vital role in this regard.     

电子商储系统的数据库设计

文章对电子商储系统中的数据库结构设计进行了探讨。首先描述了电子商储系统的商业流程;然后对电子商储系统的逻辑构件进行了探讨;最后,阐述了电子商储处理系统的具体设计。     

We Have Never Been Secular: Religious Identities,Duties, and Ethics in Audit Practice

Contemporary research highlights multiple societal and environmental benefits in addition to potential economic advantages associated with renewable energy (RE) utilization. As federal and state incentives for investments in RE technologies become more prevalent, RE sources represent increasingly viable alternatives to established fossil fuel energy. RE utilization is recognized as a key component of “green” product innovation that helps firms reduce the environmental impact of production processes and diminish their ecological footprints and energy consumption. Yet, despite consistent evidence that corporate sustainability initiatives are favorably associated with firm performance, the limited research that examines associations between RE initiatives and firm performance yields mixed results and an explicit link has yet to be established. Drawing on the natural resource-based view of the firm, we examine the association between RE utilization and firm financial performance over time. Annual ROI, Tobin’s Q, and operating margin for large U.S. firms identified as exceptional users of RE in the EPA’s Fortune 500 Top Green Power Partners list are compared with their respective industry medians over a 7-year period (2007–2013) and post hoc bootstrapping and sensitivity analyses are performed to further validate the study findings. Our research advances current knowledge about the influence of RE utilization by demonstrating that top RE user firms consistently generated superior financial performance compared to their industry competitors. As such, the study findings lend credence to the existence of a business case that complements the societal and environmental benefits of RE utilization.     

Ontology-based approach for identifying the credibility domain in social Big Data

ABSTRACT

The challenge of managing and extracting useful knowledge from social media data sources has attracted much attention from academics and industry. To address this challenge, semantic analysis of textual data is focused on in this paper. We propose an ontology-based approach to extract semantics of textual data and define the domain of data. In other words, we semantically analyze the social data at two levels: the entity level and the domain level. We have chosen Twitter as a social channel for the purpose of concept proof. Ontologies are used to capture domain knowledge and to enrich the semantics of tweets, by providing specific conceptual representation of entities that appear in the tweets. Case studies are used to demonstrate this approach. We experiment and evaluate our proposed approach with a public dataset collected from Twitter and from the politics domain. The ontology-based approach leverages entity extraction and concept mappings in terms of quantity and accuracy of concept identification.     

Antecedents of importer relationship performance in Latin America

Emerging market importers are increasingly engaging in relationships with foreign suppliers. Nevertheless, characteristics of the institutional and cultural environments of countries may affect relationship behavior. Furthermore, research on relationship marketing primarily focuses on the marketing activities of exporters from developed countries and much less attention is paid to the import side of the exchange process. Thus, the objective of this study is to empirically examine importer relationship performance in a Latin American context. This article proposes and tests a conceptual model that includes the antecedents and outcomes of trust and commitment with a survey of Chilean importers. The model uses confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to develop the construct measures and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the model. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the driving forces of trust and commitment and their influence on importing firms' performance in an emerging market context.     

Rice to shrimp: Land use/land cover changes and soil degradation in Southwestern Bangladesh

This paper examines the impact of shrimp farming on rice ecosystem in a village in Southwestern Bangladesh. The village Damarpota has experienced transformation of 274 ha (79%) of its prime quality rice fields into shrimp farms during the period between 1985 and 2003. Prolonged shrimp farming for 5-, 10-, and 15-year period has increased soil salinity, acidity, and depleted soil Ca, K, Mg, and organic C content of all three types of soils in the villages to a variable degree and caused soil degradation that significantly affected the rice yield. Declined yield and acreage of rice jointly reduced the total production of rice and animal fodder. Soil degradation and loss of acreage under rice have threatened the sustainability of the village rice ecosystem.